For those of you not familiar with the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest it ask contestants to compose a bad opening to a story involving "it was a dark and stormy night." As always I forgot to submit my entry since I don't think about it until around Halloween. I've always found it a little odd that the deadline is April 15th. Since I don't have an official entry to show you I offer you this short story that begins with this oh so trite phrase instead. Click on through to read this horrifying (as in bad) story.
It was a dark and stormy night with the sky dropping buckets of rain and the wind blowing furiously. It also happened to be Halloween night. Some feel that is all too fitting. For me it is a great annoyance. You see, I am what many of my peers refer to as a home haunter. That is, I set up a huge display for Halloween each year that rivals the most grandiose Christmas decorations. Oh, there was a time when I decorated for Christmas as well, but as I got older it got harder and harder for me to stand outside in the cold for hours on end stringing up lights. I figured that there are enough neighbors who decorate for the Winter holiday to keep-up a cheery atmosphere on the street.
But, I digress. The matter at hand is this ridiculous rain. Even though most of my display is waterproof and my garage haunt is, well, in an enclosed garage, rain on Halloween is a home haunter's worst nightmare. You see, some time ago the Trick-or-Treaters (or ToTs as fellow haunters affectionately refer to them) stopped being waterproof. That is, more accurately, the parents decided that trick-or-treating is a fair weather activity. On colder Halloween nights the traffic to my display is minimal. On rainy, stormy, cold nights like tonight it is quite likely not one ToT will push the nose on my handmade skull doorbell.
Nevertheless, I am dressed-up in my caretaker costume complete with my deadguy grey and zombie bruise colored make-up siting in my creaking rocking chair listening to my custom-made soundtrack for the evening. Rocking back-and-forth in my chair I carefully observe the display in my front yard through the storm door. Normally, I would be sitting in front of my garage passing out candy and monitoring the traffic in and out of my garage haunt. My wife would be inside in her witch costume stiring a fog filled stew cackling at those that ventured in. We new it would probably be an exercise in futility to take the effort to have everything in the garage up and running so my wife went out with some of her friends for the evening. My 17 and 19 year-old sons were over at a mutual friends house for a party and I didn't expect them back until after midnight. So for this year it will just be my yard display to look at for those that do venture out.
The first hour past dusk has passed by and not a live soul has approached the threshold of my haunted home. On the plus side, the wind tempered its howling and the rain is helping to keep my fog close to the ground. The effect is an awesome sight right out of a movie set. I just wish there were a few ToTs around that could see it. While I do truly love the way my display looks, I don't put it up for myself. I do it for the ToTs to give them some of the same memories I have from Halloweens past. When I was a kid as long as you were healthy enough to trek through the neighborhood you went trick-or-treating. We surely weren't bussed around the neighborhoods in mini-vans like so many of the kids today. Sigh. There I go showing my age. In a few years I will probably be lamenting that I walked a mile uphill in the snow to get to one house from the next.
Another hour has gone by and I have seen some activity on the sidewalks, but no one as of yet has dared come to my door. Which is a shame really. I have a neat setup on my front porch this year that allows me to covertly capture my attempts to scare the ToTs. I bought a small night-vision security camera and set up a few infra-red lights. Those infra-reds don't affect my purpleish-red lighting scheme as the light can't be seen. However, it does increase the visibility of my camera enabling me to capture the looks on the kids faces when they trip my motion sensor that causes the coffin on my porch to start rattling the chains that are on it. It seems to work really well if I do say so myself. In fact, it seemed to scare the devil out of my cat when she tripped the sensor when she came to the front porch to be let in. Poor Samhain. Oh well, she'll hide for a couple of days and be over it.
At last! Finally someone is venturing up my drive-way! I think it is Jeremy from across the street. Looks like he decided to go with the grim reaper instead of a baseball player. Good choice in my opinion. I've never understood why kids would want to were a uniform they wore all summer long. Halloween is only one night a year! Your choice in a costume should be something you can't wear any other time.
As Jeremy approached the front porch he stopped right in front of it once he reached it. He looked left, then right. Carefully, he grabbed his cloak around his knees and pulled it up so he could high step on to the porch avoiding the trip sensor that I had spent an afternoon on. Once he made it the storm door he gave me a creepy smile under is skull make-up and exclaimed, "Treat-or-Treat!"
"Ring the doorbell," I said with a smile.
"What?" he questioned.
"Ring the doorbell," I repeated a little louder. I had spent quite a bit of time rigging it up and I wanted to hear it play Toccata and Fugue just once this evening without me having to push it.
Jeremy obliged and said, "Trick-or-Treat," again as I opened the storm door.
I handed him a couple of full-size candy bars, which I had plenty of due to the lack of traffic to my door this evening. I've never given out those measly "Fun-size" candy bars and I never will. I decided to give him a few more since I definitely didn't need the left-overs. As I was putting them in his pillowcase cum trick-or-treat bag I noticed the only candy he had in there was what I had given him.
"Are you just now going out for trick-or-treating?" I asked.
"Yeah," he replied sheepishly. "Mom didn't want me to go out in the rain, but I got her to let me come over here since we saw you at your door. She said something about feeling sorry for you. I didn't understand why she was feeling sorry for you. I'm the one that isn't getting to go get candy!"
"Yep, that stinks," I agreed. "Tell your mom thanks, and have a happy Halloween."
"Thank You," he said as he turned around to leave. As he did so he tripped the sensor to the coffin, forgetting it was there. It visibly startled him. He turned around to look at me with a mild look of panic that quickly turned in to smile. He shook his head and rolled his eyes as if to say, "Fine, you got me." I smiled back, and Jeremy restarted his trip back home to his house across the street.
Ten P.M. rolled around and Jeremy was still my only visitor. I decided it was time to accept that Halloween was over and it was time to start turning off my display. First, I changed out of my costume and put on some sweatpants and a hoodie. I put my camping rain suit on over that and starting the process of turning off each of my fog machines and carrying them in to the garage. And then the penguins attacked. Of course I use the term "attacked" liberally. As most people know penguins don't exactly move very fast. Nevertheless, there were at least 20 of the birds waddling towards my graveyard. Most of them were squawking, but it wasn't quite normal for what I expecting them to sound like. Then I noticed their eyes. Their eyes didn't look right. It was as if there was nothing behind them. And their feathers were all disheveled in a way that I had never seen on penguins before. Granted, I've only seen a few penguins in person so I am by far not an expert, but there was something just not right about this lot.
"Holy Shit!" I exclaimed out loud. It was starting to click. The dead eyes, the moaning, the mussed up feathers could only mean one thing. These had to be zombie penguins! I finished gathering up the final fog machine and I hurriedly took it to the garage. Not wanting to wait for the garage door to go down with the opener I pulled the safety release handle and manually slammed the door shut. Once it was down I reconnected the release to the opener and locked the door. This effectively created a double lock on the garage. I walked past the Halloween display separator to the undecorated side of the garage. Frantically I looked around for something I could use to defend myself. The first thing that caught my eye was a post hole digger. I went over to grab it, but as I did so I realized it was too cumbersome to be used effectively as a weapon. I continued to eyeball my surroundings when the glint of my shovel caught my attention.
Feeling sufficiently armed I went inside the house to secure all the entrances. Luckily, I had the windows boarded up already as part of my display so all I really had to do was lock and deadbolt the doors. As an extra precaution I moved the kitchen table in front of the back door. I then went back in to the garage and grabbed a two-by-four, some nails, and a hammer. I secured the two-by-four underneath the handle of the door handle and nailed it in place. I took a step back and and tried to think of any other entrances I might be missing. I considered blocking off the fireplace, but that seemed like overkill. Then I realized I was forgetting the basement. I grabbed more lumber and nails, and I rushed down in to the basement. I went to the door for the walk-out and began tacking up boards width-wise across the frame. I was glad I had because there were already a few of the penguins that had made their way in to the backyard.
Finally feeling somewhat secure I went back upstairs to sit down in my rocker and try to figure out what my next course of action would be. After a few minutes of mulling some options in my head the thought occurred to me that while I had locked myself in, I had also locked my family out.
"Dammit," I sighed. While I was trying to decide how to resolve getting my family in to the safety of the house I decided it was probably best to call them and find out how widespread this zombie outbreak was. I called my oldest son first and got no answer. Instead of trying to call again I called my younger son since they were both supposed to be at the same place. He answered on the second ring and seemed to be okay. I asked him what the penguin situation was where he was at. He didn't seemed to have any idea what I was talking about. I told him to take a look outside and tell me what he saw. He grudgingly obliged and told me to hold on. When he came back on he re-affirmed that he had no idea what I was talking about in regards to any penguins. I asked him if his brother was with him. He said he was. I explained that no matter what they were not to leave where they were until I came to get them. He made a snarky comment and hung-up.
I wasn't pleased with the conversation, but I was satisfied that they were okay. I started to scroll through the contacts on my phone to call my wife when my phone started to ring. Conveniently, it was my wife. As soon as I answered she asked me if I was drunk. I didn't understand what she was inferring and thought that was quite rude. She explained that our youngest had called her saying that he thought dad was drunk because he got a random call about there being an penguin invasion. I sighed and made the assumption there weren't any penguins near my wife either. I told her we could talk about it later and to be careful. I then hung-up on her and leaned back in my chair and went back to rocking so I could clear my head.
After rocking back-and-forth for a while I decided I should take another look outside. It was hard to see through the fence boards I had used to board up my windows, but it appeared that most of the penguins where now congregating inside my graveyard fence. A couple were in front of my porch but were having a hard time scaling the steps. The steps seemed like enough of a barrier alone to keep me safe. I thought about undoing the two-by-four from the door, but decided against it . I sat back down and started to wondering if I was imagining the zombie penguins. I know it sounds crazy, but they have to be zombies. They are all scraped up and making the most horrific noises. Then again, I wonder if the penguins are even real in the first place. Did I have something to drink earlier?
THUMP! Rattle-rattle rattle
"What the hell was that?" I wondered aloud as I got up from my rocker to investigate. I looked out the window next to the door once more and saw a penguin trying to make its way up the steps. It kept flapping one of its flippers causing the sensor for the coffin to be tripped. Annoyed, I flipped the switch for that outlet on the inside of the house and it turned the mechanism off. I sat back down in my rocker and continued waiting. Waiting for the kids to come home. Waiting for my wife to get home. Waiting for something worse to happen.
Duh ni nuh, dun it tah nuh nuh
"Huh?" I said sleepily. I think I must have dozed off. I rubbed my eyes to bring them in focus and saw my blue and red lights through the window.
Duh ni nuh, dun it tah nuh nuh The sound came on again. It took me a second to realize it was my doorbell. Then I noticed my lights were flickering.
Duh ni nuh, dun it tah nuh nuh This time I sheepishly said, "Hello?" aloud.
"This is the police. Can we please talk to you?" the voice said.
"The penguins," I muttered. "The penguins! Watch out for the penguins!" I yelled.
"Sir, we know about the penguins. Everything is fine now. We just want to ask you a few questions so we can have a better idea of what happened," a different voice said.
"Did any of them bite you?" I asked.
"A few of us got nipped, but we're okay. Nothing serious. Can you please step outside?" the first voice repsonded.
"Nothing serious?" I questioned loudly. "How do you know none of you are infected?"
"Sir, what would we be infected with? Aside from a few scratches these are very healthy birds. For the last time, can you please come outside? This is the last time we will ask," the second officer requested starting to sound annoyed.
"I can't come outside. I barred myself in with two-by-fours. I wanted to protect myself from the zombie penguins."
"Zombies?" the first officer muttered.
"What zombies?" The second officer asked. "The only thing that was out here were some penguins that escaped after a transport carrying them crashed while en route to the new exhibit at the zoo. Is this some sort of Halloween prank? Do you think this is funny sir? I'm ordering back-up to get a battering arm to take your door down."
"No!" I exclaimed. "Don't do that! I'll come out, I promise. I just need to take these two-by-fours off first."
"What about the going through the garage?" one of the officers mumbled.
"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I guess that would be easier wouldn't it. I will be out in a minute."
I put the hammer down I had picked up as a self-defense reaction and headed towards the garage. I unlocked the garage door and activated the opener. After I did so I put my hands on my head as a precaution. I knew I was still amped-up and I think I probably scared the officers as well. Once the door was opened I saw that the officers were standing in front of the door at a distance with their hands on their holstered guns. I looked past them and saw a large refrigerated truck on the street.
"Is that where the penguins are?" I asked as I nodded to the truck with my hands on my head.
"Yes," replied the officer on the left which I believed to be the 2nd officer by his voice.
"Can I see them?" I asked.
"Fine sir. You can take your hands down now," officer number two replied.
I slowly made my way to the back of the truck. When I arrived I saw that the door was still open. There were several metal crates, each with a penguin inside. Since one of the patrol cars behind me had its spotlight on I was able to see the penguins better now. Most of them were very dirty, and a few had some cuts. It was clear to me now that the penguins were indeed not zombies after all.
"Okay, I admit I let the spirit of the night get the better of me and I overacted. Sorry if I freaked you guys out," I apologized.
"Yeah, um about that," the first officer started, "We would like you to come with us to the station so we can have someone ask you some more questions."
"Am I under arrested?" I worried aloud.
"No sir," the first officer responded. "Well, provided you come voluntarily. If you refuse then yes, I am afraid we will have to arrest you so to speak."
"Under what grounds?" I belted out.
"Sir, please stay calm. We just need you to have a talk with one of our other officers," the 2nd officer explained.
"Fine," I said feeling defeated. "Can I call my wife first?"
Both of the officers looked at each other, shrugged, then turned to me and nodded. Taking that as a yes I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and called my wife.
"Honey? Can you meet me at the police station? I will explain everything when you get there."
